NASSCO has been building the TAKE class of Navy supply ships in recent years, a program that has stayed within budget and deadlines.

The Pentagon also plans to expand its stable of unmanned aircraft systems used for surveillance, reconnaissance and information gathering, saying the drones have saved lives.

Next year’s budget calls for 28 new Predator-class aircraft, the kind made by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems in Poway. The company this week declined to comment on the Pentagon’s announcements.

A spokesman for Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, said remote-controlled vehicles have proved worthwhile in Iraq, where roadside bombs quickly became the deadliest threat to American forces. The systems keep track of roads day and night, helping to detect people who might be placing the homemade explosives.

Hunter, a Marine veteran, wants the military to take that lesson and expand the use of drones in Afghanistan, said his spokesman, Joe Kasper.

“Afghanistan has mountainous terrain that is not conducive to foot patrols. We need something to monitor and respond to any type of activity there,” Kasper said.

The Quadrennial Defense Review, required by Congress since 1997, contained nothing to change what in recent years has been a shift of Navy resources to the Pacific from the Atlantic.

The aircraft carrier Carl Vinson will soon make San Diego its home port, and the Navy has moved attack submarines to Point Loma Naval Base. In addition, the first batch of Littoral Combat Ships, a new series of highly versatile vessels capable of patrolling coastlines, will be stationed in San Diego.

“The future is about Asia, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific region,” Hoffman said. “For San Diego, for California and for Hawaii, that just makes the capabilities and the supporting establishment here more important in the future than it was even in the past.”

Pentagon leaders also intend to bolster anti-missile systems mounted on Navy ships — particularly those based in San Diego and Hawaii — and projects to counter cyberwarfare from China, including efforts led by SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific in Point Loma.

While San Diego County’s defense picture may be rosy in the near term, Wilkerson cautioned that harder times might not be that far away, given the cost of maintaining the military’s wartime tempo.

“The trouble is in the out years, down the road four to five years. And the trouble is what happens when they come to grips with the (federal) deficit,” he said.

“Maybe there’s an ax falling somewhere in the future, but you can’t find it now.”